Is a homicide involving the use of an AK47 assault rifle or a handgun
a gun-crime? Not when it is a “targeted killing” or “an
armed robbery that went wrong”. These descriptions of what gun-crime
is not come courtesy of two serving senior policemen: Jeremy Alford,
Assistant Chief Constable of Hertfordshire and Nottinghamshire Chief
Superintendent, Richard Johnson, respectively.

Mr Alford’s description comes in “a message of reassurance”
following the fatal shooting of David King, a 32-year-old doorman,
in Hoddesdon on October 03, 2003. The targeted killing of Mr King
results in two other men receiving gunshot wounds (1).

Richard Johnson is describing here the homicidal shooting of Marian
Bates, a 64-year-old jeweller, after two teenagers attempted to rob
her store in Arnold, Nottingham, on September 30, 2003 (The Sun 01/10/03).

Alford and Johnson’s descriptions prove too “disturbing”
for The Telegraph, a pro- police newspaper. On October 5, 2003, The
Telegraph publishes “Boot in mouth”, an editorial which
condemns in particular the “complacency of Jeremy Alford”.

More disturbing than the complacency those descriptions reveal is the
subtext which hides behind police failure to describe the homicides
of Mrs Bates and Mr King as gun-crimes.

That subtext is as simply as it is idiotic: police define gun-crime
as a black-only crime involving cocaine trafficking and sale of crack.
Alford’s “Boot in mouth” is the result of his effort
to keep gun-crime thus defined regardless of the consequence for police-black
relations and crime fighting.

For simplicity sake, let us leave aside police-black relations and
instead focus on the definition of the label gun-crime. As a label,
gun-crime is meaningless in law. Therefore, a central question, which
this article addresses, is “what purpose does the label gun-crime
serve in the investigation of offences involving firearms?”

Police pick four random components to define gun-crime. Race and
nationality are the principal component of gun-crime definition. Black
people, Jamaicans yardie gangsters in particular, are responsible
for “the new era of gun violence” in Britain (The Observer
21/09/03). After international terrorism, yardie-style gangsters represent
the greatest threat to policing warns detective chief superintendent
John Coles (The Observer 14/06/03).

In June 2002, Bob Ainsworth, Home Office Minister with responsibility
for drug, echoes Coles’ warning at a Birmingham “cocaine
summit” which the government called to discuss “gun and
crack culture” (The Guardian 9/06/02, 25/06/02).

Crack dealing is the second component of gun-crime. Ainsworth claims
there is a close link between cocaine trafficking and dealing crack
(The Telegraph 25/06/02). Jamaica provides that link. Sixty-five per
cent of all drugs in the UK had come from Jamaica (BBC News 4/01/02).
Jamaicans are at the forefront of crack dealing in Britain.

Gun-crime’s third component is its association with crack dealers’
violence. John Coles claims, “the crack trade is closely linked
to gun crime” (The Guardian 14/06/03). Ainsworth confirms the
linkage when he says, “the levels of violence associated with
crack cocaine are very disturbing and they are very clearly linked to
the supply of that drug” (The Guardian 25/06/02).

The final component of gun-crime is its location, where it takes place.
Britain’s black population is concentrated in the inner cities.
Certain communities in these cities form the “badlands”
where Jamaican gangsters sell crack and fight turf wars (The Sun 4/10/03).

Brixton, London, is one such community. On June 23, 2002, The Observer
claims, “The centre of Brixton is a 24-hour crack supermarket.”
This chimes with Ainsworth’s comment that “The black community
does have a problem” (The Guardian 25/06/02).

How does police definition of gun-crime impact on the investigation
of crimes involving the use of firearms?

Police define gun-crime as a “homogeneous problem”. All
gun-crime is related to the crack trade. Crack is the drug of choice
for black people, especially Jamaican cocaine traffickers and crack
dealers. Therefore all gun-crime is black related. A consequence of
such logic is Operation Trident, the Metropolitan police anti-black
crime unit, which John Coles heads.

Operation Trident poses a number of problems when it comes to the
investigation of crimes involving firearms. The first problem relates
to its chief operating principle: race and nationality. It is a “dedicated
anti black on black crime unit” (The Guardian 25/06/02). Blacks
and Jamaicans are its only target.

The killers of Marian Bates and David King are white, proof enough
that black people do not come close to holding the monopoly on gun
related homicides.

Trident’s second problem centres on police failure to acknowledge
openly the source of crack primary ingredient: cocaine. The manufacture
of crack is a local cottage industry. Very little crack is smuggled
into Britain. Crack is a pure form of cocaine. Its raw material, cocaine,
is smuggled into the UK by various routes.

According to the government, cocaine arrives in Britain overwhelmingly
from South American through Spain, Portugal, Belgium and the Netherlands
(HM Custom and Excise). An estimated “seven per cent of all
cocaine in Britain comes via the Caribbean” (The Telegraph 25/06/02).
This contradicts the BBC News claim “that 65% of all drugs in
the UK had come from Jamaica” (BBC News 4/01/02).

Trident’s third problem relates to the racial profile of cocaine
main traffickers and dealers. Home Office research finds that with
the exception of crack, white people aged between 16- 29 are the primary
users of class A drugs such as cocaine and heroine (HORS 224, 2001:50).
Similarly, white traffickers are responsible for the majority of cocaine
entering the country. Three examples will support the last point.

In June 2002, Hilton John Van Staden started a twelve-year jailed sentence.
Staden, a South African national, was head of global white drug gang,
which conspired to smuggle 600kg of cocaine from Latin America to the
UK (The Guardian 14/06/02).

“Cocaine queen”, Julie Patterson, is another trafficker
currently doing time. The 46-year-old white yachtswoman received a twenty-four-year
jail sentence, in October 2000, for her part in a trans-Atlantic operation
to smuggle 400kg of cocaine into Britain (BBC News 17/12/02).

Finally, Margaret Loughran, a 52-year-old white granny, was sentenced
to ten-years in prison in December 2002 for attempting to smuggle cocaine
from Jamaica to Britain (The Voice 2/12/02).

The age, gender and racial profile of Staden, Patterson and Loughran
emphasize the idiocy of defining cocaine traffickers as primarily black
“single mothers” (The Telegraph 4/01/02).

Such an approach results in targeting a disproportionate amount of
police resource, which Trident does, on an insignificant minority of
offenders. In so doing, police sabotage any real chance of disrupting
the crack trade at source. In particular, preventing white traffickers
from bringing cocaine into Britain would result in a corresponding cessation
of crack manufacture and sale. Such a solution is axiomatic: no cocaine
trafficking, no crack dealing. Consequently, there would be no gun-crime.

That is if police definition of gun-crime as a “homogeneous problem”
is credible.
Speaking on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme on October 4, 2003, the
deputy chief constable of Greater Manchester, Alan Green, rejects
the belief that gun crime is a “homogeneous problem”.
He says, “there are different types of people involved in gun-crime.
I think if we approach [gun-crime] as just one problem then we’re
doom to failure”. In other words, the belief that firearms offences
are exclusively related to black crack traders’ warfare hamstrings
any investigation of homicides involving firearms where the decease
is white.

Take the so-called “targeted killing” of David King. Although
his assailants’ partly concealed their identity, witnesses are
able to confirm their racial profile as white. Yet neither the police
nor press highlight this very useful piece of information in their report.

The downside of not doing so is someone could have seen the gunmen
before they disguised themselves. Such a witness might not connect
them with the Mr King’s killers because white people do not
fit the assumed racial profile of gun-crime offenders, which is black.
As a result, the homicide is harder to solve.

Gun-crime primary purpose is as a label it establishes in the public
mind the stereotype of crimes involving firearms as exclusively black
crimes. It demonises black people without contributing to homicide
clear up rate. Nor does it impact on the crack trade. Quite the contrary,
by focusing a disproportionate amount of police resource on criminalizing
blacks, white criminals are free to traffic and sell cocaine to blacks
involved in the manufacture and sale of crack. This virtuous circle
might provide Operation Trident with its raison d’être,
but it does not deal with the real cause of the “curse of crack
cocaine”: white cocaine traffickers and racist policing.